{"id":2350138,"date":"2026-03-29T12:38:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T12:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2350138"},"modified":"2026-03-29T12:38:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T12:38:21","slug":"popular-sarasota-waterfront-park-to-get-10m-upgrade-for-flooding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/popular-sarasota-waterfront-park-to-get-10m-upgrade-for-flooding\/","title":{"rendered":"Popular Sarasota waterfront park to get $10M upgrade for flooding"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A popular Sarasota waterfront park is getting a $10 million upgrade to reduce flooding and storm surge damage.<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

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Downtown Sarasota\u2019s<\/a> Bay Park will see about $10 million in improvements to its shoreline to protect against flooding and storm surges, as part of a public works project funded by federal and state grants.<\/p>\n\n

The Bay Park Conservancy, which co-manages the park with the city of Sarasota, will oversee the project.<\/p>\n

Plans call for more green space and stormwater ponds to improve the quality of the water that flows into Sarasota Bay.<\/p>\n

The contractor on the project is Jon F. Swift, a local construction company.<\/p>\n

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Sarasota city spokesperson Luke Mocherman said in an email that the project is fully funded by two grants: $10,418,271 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, administered by the Florida Department of Commerce, and $1.25 million from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cBoth grants require matching funds, which will be provided by the Bay Park Conservancy,\u201d Mocherman said.<\/p>\n

Renee Hayes, the city\u2019s procurement official, told the commission that the project\u2019s initial budget was $13.4 million, and Jon F. Swift Construction\u2019s bid was 25% less than that.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Resilient Shoreline project is among Sarasota\u2019s big plans for The Bay Park.<\/p>\n

It is where planners hope to build a new performing arts center<\/a> to replace the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, a project that would cost between $260 and $295 million in total.<\/p>\n

The city also approved an updated master plan for the 53-acre space in 2023, which calls for more green space and walking paths, additional boat ramps and waterfront restaurants, and improvements to the water quality.<\/p>\n\n

The chaotic 2024 storm season<\/a>, which saw Hurricanes Debbie, Helene, and Milton all leave an imprint of damage on Sarasota, cost the park about $1 million in damage.<\/p>\n

Sarasota does not directly fund The Bay Park, but it did issue $48 million in debt to finance major improvements. It also funded another $6 million with penny sales tax funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Christian Casale covers local government for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Email him at ccasale@usatodayco.com or christiancasale@protonmail.com<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.heraldtribune.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A popular Sarasota waterfront park is getting a $10 million upgrade to reduce flooding and storm surge damage. Downtown Sarasota\u2019s Bay Park will see about $10 million in improvements to its shoreline to protect against flooding and storm surges, as part of a public works project funded by federal and state grants. The Bay Park […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2350139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[350148,436021,39915,365834,365840,349726,350852,436020,6297,365835,324465,21835,456029,405739,21739,344928,22764,350847,211924,21738,239343,239453,346464,361777,361778,345720,23139,239344],"class_list":["post-2350138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-accidents","tag-accidents-u0026-disasters","tag-affiliate","tag-civil","tag-civil-engineering","tag-construction","tag-construction-u0026-maintenance","tag-disasters","tag-eamotion","tag-engineering","tag-gardens","tag-government","tag-government-grants","tag-grants","tag-local","tag-local-affiliate-travel","tag-local-news","tag-maintenance","tag-neutral","tag-news","tag-overall","tag-overall-neutral","tag-parks","tag-regional","tag-regional-parks-u0026-gardens","tag-sarasota","tag-travel","tag-u0026"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Popular-Sarasota-waterfront-park-to-get-10M-upgrade-for-flooding.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2350138"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2350140,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350138\/revisions\/2350140"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2350139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2350138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2350138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2350138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}